About the Exhibition:
Internationally acclaimed Australian filmmaker Daniel Askill will present a striking exhibition of video, photographic and sculptural works at the Monster Children Gallery in April, the first in a series that will culminate in Askill’s first long form film project.

The new film, tentatively titled Universal Machine, will expand upon ideas and concepts introduced in his 2003 short film We Have Decided Not To Die, which comprised three acts entitled Rituals One, Two and Three. The film was labeled a “visually stunning imagining of human rituals” by the New York Times and played at hundreds of international film festivals, winning major prizes at many including Clemont – Ferrand, Melbourne International, Brooklyn International and South By Southwest.

Universal Machine will follow with rituals four, five and six. During the fifth ritual, the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall is the location for the climax of the second act, presented in this exhibition in large-scale photographic form. This sits alongside a holographic video sketch of the central character, and other artefacts from the fifth ritual.

Born in Sydney in 1977, Daniel Askill works internationally as a filmmaker and artist and lives between Sydney and New York. Described as “a technical clinician with a designer’s eye for form and a composer’s affection for minimalism” by US production industry bible ‘Boards’, he has created film, video installations, music videos and commercials, and in 2001 he co-founded multidisciplinary studio COLLIDER which now represents an award winning roster of filmmakers, designers and artists.